A world beset eCommerce services provider company share his experience and described what are the right steps, the retailer needs to start eCommerce business smoothly without errors at the start. It is important to observe this particular sequence of steps.
STEP 1. Working Group
We recommend creating a team before starting development. The team should include competent employees with certain areas of responsibility in the processes of the company.
Typically, this:
- Head of marketing or marketer.
- Head of Sales or Commercial Director.
- Technical director or system administrator.
- 1C specialist.
The project manager on the client-side is collegially appointed. Successful completion of the project largely depends on this person. Therefore, he must understand the business processes of the company and, ideally, be savvy in the field of IT in order to quickly find a common language with the developer.
STEP 2. Analytics and task set for the project
At this step, we aggregate all the requirements for the project, as a result - this is a document with a detailed analysis of the four components of the analysis:
- general vision of the project,
- analysis of the target audience,
- competitive analysis
- study of the future structure of the online store,
- list of SEO recommendations.
- Project vision
Here we describe a general understanding of the project. We fix for whom and why we are doing this project, describe the tasks and goals of the project.
Target Audience Analysis
In order to make the online store as attractive as possible for its target audience, describe the characteristics of the most likely site visitor. When developing the site’s interface, it’s important to always compare yourself with a certain fictional character that is most suitable for the portrait of your customer, and talk about convenience through the eyes of this character. We are sure that you, like no other, can describe it on the basis of buyers of offline sales points.
10 Fundamental Steps for Online Retailers
Competitive analysis
We are preparing a table in which we write out data for each competitor. There is no need to analyze all - just select the 5 largest. If you can bite a piece of the market from them, then those that are weaker will share it.
What is important to know:
- Pricing policy (prices for popular products, discount system, etc.).
- Assortment volume.
- Delivery terms (regions, cost, term).
- Types of payment.
- Service (quality of communications during order processing).
- Subjective assessment of the site (structure, "chips", design assessment on a 10-point scale, etc.).
- Channels to attract traffic.
- To compare prices, use one of the services, for example, Metacommerce.
Detuning from competitors
Thanks to competitive analysis, you will understand the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and will be able to rebuild from them. For example, ceteris paribus, the client will choose the store where a convenient and intuitive interface with high-quality packaging of goods (photo, video, description).
But we must remember that almost all of the above components of UTP are tied to money. Bet on service and delivery speed - this will affect the costs associated with logistics. You will improve the quality of the content - you will incur additional costs for the equipment and the team that will deal with the content. All this will inevitably lead to an increase in prices for the goods of your store.
Therefore, determine for yourself two criteria in which you want to be better than your competitors and focus on them. So, if you position yourself with speed and convenience, then the developer will be able to put the right emphasis on the advantages associated with a convenient site and delivery speed.
Search engine optimization (SEO) in the analytics phase - why is this important?
The usual situation is when a newly developed online store is transferred to search promotion, and the company that will promote your site puts up an additional list of requirements and improvements for a round sum.
Why did this happen?
- At the development stage, search demand was not taken into account.
- Did not comply with the mandatory requirements of search engines.
- Prepared a future directory structure based on demand and search queries.
- Identified the needs of Central Asia based on search queries.
- Conducted SEO analysis of competitor sites.
- Prepared a list of recommendations for increasing attendance through internal search engine optimization.
- Checked compliance with the requirements at each stage of development.
We will not describe each of these points in detail since this is a topic for a separate article, so we will only consider the first one.
It is easier for company employees to work with an online store if its structure looks like this:
CROSBY
- ballet shoes,
- sneakers (male, female),
- boots
- sneakers.
BETSY
- shoes
- low shoes
- sneakers (male, female),
- boots.
Such a structure is fraught with the following difficulties:
- It’s hard for customers to pick shoes for themselves, as not everyone understands brands.
- It is difficult to choose a landing page, for example, to promote men's sneakers.
From the point of view of convenience and SEO, the structure should look like this:
Women's shoes
- shoes
- ankle boots
- boots
- low shoes
- ballet shoes.
- sneakers (male, female),
- boots
- sneakers.
- Hogl,
- CROSBY,
- BETSY.
So visitors are much easier to navigate and you have the opportunity to promote category pages. We also saved brands and in the future you will receive additional traffic for brand requests “buy Crosby sneakers”.
STEP 3. Choosing a platform
There are many content management platforms (CMS) on the market, both free and commercial. But there are a number of requirements for CMS to meet the functional features of modern online stores:
- The convenience of management.
- Download speed.
- Protection against viruses and attacks.
- Availability of ready-made modules for e-commerce.
- The ability to withstand high loads.
- Real-time integration with accounting systems.
- Support for multi-value and multi-warehouse.
- Integration with online cash registers.
- Integration with trading platforms.
- Integration with services (CRM, delivery services and payment systems, personalization services and e-mail marketing).
- Seamless scaling.
- A large number of development partners.
STEP 4. Integration with the accounting system
Actual information on commodity items is perhaps one of the most important components of a successful online store. Therefore, integration with the accounting system takes priority, as it:
- Unloads the corresponding goods in real-time format (nomenclature, all types of prices and balances).
- Takes orders placed by customers and uploads them to the accounting system.
- Reduces the burden on managers.
You and the developer must understand what data needs to be uploaded/displayed / uploaded on the site side and what needs to be done in order for the integration to succeed. In 75% of cases, integration is non-standard, and compromises have to be found. Either develop a solution for the correct processing of data on the site side or fully prepare the accounting system for this.
As you know, this entails additional labor costs both on the part of the developer and the client. Not having provided all the nuances at the initial stage, in the end you run the risk of getting a project of a completely different level of quality.
Step 5. Content Preparation
Now a lot of decides the quality of content. Content affects the decision to purchase and the position of the site in search engines. The synergy of unique content with a successful user experience will give you the same growth in the customer base and, as a result, profit. If you prepare all the content in advance, the developer will be able to use it in the development, providing for many nuances.
But in most cases, the content, with the exception of uploading from the accounting system, is prepared in parallel with the development according to the requirements that we determine at the prototyping stage.
STEP 6. Design
Only after complete data collection during the deep start analysis in the first four steps are we ready to start prototyping.
A prototype is a schematic representation of your future online store. The prototype is equipped with navigation and interactive elements with which you can interact already at this stage.
The development of the future structure of the site and its pages is much faster than in graphic programs. As a result, you save on development due to the fact that the designer-designer spends much less time moving page elements.
Why is it important to design a site before starting to design?
- A clear understanding is formed on how the site will work.
- The prototype is more clear and understandable than a list of technical documentation.
- Making adjustments is cheaper than at the design and programming stage.
- Thanks to the prototype, you can determine the exact cost of the project.
- Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
A big mistake will be trying to immediately launch a fully functional online store and there are many reasons for this:
- The more complex the functionality, the more expensive and longer the development.
- The more functionality, the more difficult it is to catch errors.
- By putting off testing the interface and collecting feedback from visitors, you risk spending time and money on functionality that will not be needed or inconvenient for your target audience.
It will be more correct to act on the principle of MVP, i.e., launch a product with the minimum necessary functionality to start, starting with the basic processes. And after the launch, as necessary, gradually increase the necessary functionality, developing the resource.
STEP 7. Design Development
The design should simplify, not complicate. Design is what forms the visitor’s primary perception and trust in the site. Therefore, it should be conceptual and modern, but at the same time not interfere with the convenience of interaction, because the fact of the purchase is at stake.
Adaptive design
Now adaptive is not a whim, but a necessity. The trends of the modern approach to the development of online stores are dictated by the development of mobile devices. Yandex and Google unanimously say that they will give priority to sites with responsive design, and users, faced with the uncomfortable stage of placing an order on the iPhone screen, buy from competitors. An adaptive online store is not the trend now, but the norm.
Do not neglect the way your site looks on mobile platforms. At the design stage, in addition to page layouts for PCs, we draw almost all the pages of the online store for mobile device screens.
If the developer claims that he will draw all the layouts, then often this is far from the case. Only basic layouts are drawn, then the layout programmer customizes all the other pages to your liking. Require rendering of all pages, do not save on taking care of your visitors - nobody canceled the 6-second rule (the time for which the visitor forms a personal opinion about the site at first glance).
STEP 8. Assembly and programming
Make sure at the start of the project the expertise of the developer. He must have at least two expertise:
- Be an eCommerce specialist with experience in complex integrations.
- Be a certified developer and have experience in implementing solutions of the platform on which you decided to develop the site.
STEP 9. Testing and debugging
Thoroughly test the online store for errors and ease of use before launch, attracting members of the working and focus groups.
At this point, it is advisable to check all user scenarios for errors. If new ideas come in the process of verification, transfer them to the subsequent stages of the project development, otherwise, the launch process can go on forever.
STEP 10. Work with applications
2020 is the year of business automation. This trend has spread to all areas of the business.
Unfortunately, most business owners do not think about the fact that an increase in sales is not always an increase in profits. And those who realized this are beginning to actively implement CRM systems to increase the efficiency of their business.
The graph shows how the conversion to paid orders decreases with an increase in the number of orders.
RetailCRM Study
The problem is to increase the efficiency of order processing, you are forced to inflate the staff, and this inevitably entails additional costs and reduced profitability of the business.
The cost of implementation, for example RetailCRM, is often lower than the cost of finding and salary of an additional employee.
CRM will allow:
- To increase the efficiency of order processing without inflating the staff (1 employee + CRM will replace 3 employees).
- Reduce the cost of money and time for processing orders.
- Refuse less profitable advertising channels for attracting traffic.
- Reduce work time on routine operations.
- Increase managerial control.
- Increase conversion to paid orders.
- Increase repeat sales and average bills.
- Increase customer loyalty.
RetailCRM Infographic
This step is not critical at the start-up phase, but you should know about it before you decide to hire more managers.
Conclusion
Do not make unreasonable decisions or put forward hypotheses to improve the interface without facts supported by figures. Remember that an online store is a tool that constantly requires analytics and development. In it, you will find improvements that should positively affect the growth of the effectiveness of your online store in the future.